H.R.H. Princess Elizabeth: I thank you most sincerely for your words of welcome to my husband and myself and I thank the people of Alberta for this magnificent bear rug they have given me.

I would also like to take this opportunity, Mr. Mayor (Sidney Parsons), of thanking you and the people of Edmonton for the presents you have given us for our children. I know they will love them.

Yesterday we left the West Coast of Canada and the morning we climbed through the Rockies and the famed Yellowhead Pass, the traditional route of explorers and fur traders on their way to the Pacific.

And now I am very glad to stand in this fine city of Edmonton, the gateway to the North. Surely this city stands in what must be one of the richest areas of the world, with its oil and gold, radium and uranium and its vast tracks of fertile grain growing and diary land.

I wish we could see more of Canada and above all I wish we could visit these people who live and work, under pioneer conditions, in the North. We would like to meet them just as we would like to see some of those places whose names carry with them the spirit of romance and adventure, Great Slave Lake, Yellowknife, Great Bear Lake and the Peace River country but that must wait for another time.

Though we must leave Edmonton after all too short a stay we take with us a happy memory of your welcome and the hope that one day we shall have an opportunity to return.